BOSCO-Uganda unveils a new logo!

BOSCO-Uganda is proud to announce the creation and use of a new logo. The new logo, seen below, is meant to evoke the sense of hope and energy which our mission brings forth through the creative use of solar powered ICT technologies, while bringing the Internet to the most rural corners of northern Uganda.

BOSCO-Uganda logo with tagline

The “O” in BOSCO–which stands for battery operated systems for community outreach–is meant to evoke the sun and its far reaching rays; the source of solar power which makes our mission possible, bringing modern technology to places that may never be connected to the electrical grid.

The rays also, of course, create the outline of the Ugandan borders and are meant to represent the long range WiFi Internet technology which can be transmitted via towers (note the “A” in Uganda which doubles as a tower) dozens of kilometers to village trading centers, schools, government offices, and health clinics, bringing Internet to places
where service providers don’t have the economic incentive to connect.

Finally, our tagline–“Connecting people, preserving culture”–succintly sums up our mission and the way we engage the work we do. BOSCO-Uganda began when war in the north of Uganda was just subsiding. Nearly 2 million displaced persons were hesitant to leave the IDP camps for threat of renewed violence. A whole generation had grown up in these camps, disconnected from both outside information and, perhaps more importantly, from the ways of their own culture. In a culture where land and family traditions are so important, IDP camps created a “lost generation” where culture was not transmitted from the elders to the youth.

BOSCO-Uganda believes that doesn’t have to be the case anymore. Through the use of modern technology, cultural traditions can be stored and passed on indefinitely. It’s as simple as recording an elder’s story on a digital camera, uploading that story in Pagak (one of our sites) and then watching a youth download that very same story in Pabo (another one of our sites) 40 minutes away, to listen and learn the ways of the rich Acholi culture. Thus the slogan: “Connecting people, preserving culture.” Of course preserving the culture is only possible with the help and investment of time and resources by the local community. BOSCO-Uganda’s technology is a medium for this. But the real infrastructure lies in the people and relationships that are created when the local community uses and learns how to use this technology. We are seeing that today, happening before our eyes. We hope our new logo shares that same sense of renewed hope that the Acholi people are now feeling.